Today's Omaha World-Herald sets in context a complicated religious accommodation dispute that erupted last week at the JSB Swift & Co. meat packing plant in Grand Island, Nebraska. It began when Muslim employees, mostly from Somalia, walked off the job last Monday claiming they were not being allowed a break to pray and break their daily Ramadan fast. Here is what happened next according to the paper:
The ... United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 22 announced a compromise that would allow Muslims to take breaks to pray and eat shortly after sunset. Then an estimated 1,000 non-Muslim workers, including Hispanics, whites and Christian Sudanese refugees — walked off the job on Wednesday. They were protesting what they viewed as unfair treatment favoring the Muslims. The compromise was withdrawn. About 50 to 80 Muslim workers then walked off the job Thursday, despite the threat of termination. When some tried to return to work Friday, they were told they had been fired.... JBS Swift officials said in a statement Friday they were working with employees and the union to resolve the problems.
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There is one crucial aspect of this dispute that is not apparent from the summary or the linked article, namely that the protests by the non-Muslim workers (in contrast to those of some commentators) are not aimed at accommodation of Muslim practices per se. Rather, their complaint is about the break schedule. The problem as I understand it is that everyone must take their breaks at the same time - apparently one cannot run a meat packing line efficiently with some workers taking breaks at one time and some at another time. The break schedule hitherto in operation, negotiated by the union, is one that places breaks so as to divide shifts up evenly, thus minimizing the longest period of work without a break. The break schedule demanded by the Muslim workers divides the shift unevenly, requiring workers to work considerably longer without a break. What the non-Muslim workers object to is this change in their own break schedule.
Some of the opposition by others to accommodation of the Muslim workers is clearly due to anti-Muslim sentiment, but it is important to be clear that the opposition on the part of the workers themselves is due to a legitimate issue regarding their own working conditions. This not only casts the dispute in another light but affects the legal issue since it is permissible for an employer not to provide accommodation that would impact the efficiency of its operations.
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